What makes a good forum software?

[juststeven]

Back in the days of the original PhpBB. Forum software was simple. However in the last few years it has come on so far with new software like XenForo making their release to the world. These days we have jquery and colour changers and instant ajax pm notifications. Far from the simple software of the past! So what does a new forum software looking to succeed need? Does it need to gear towards been a social network like XenForo or more like a full website like IPB. Or do we want a blast from the past and keep things simple like FluxBB? If you were taken on by a new forum software company and told to make a list of mandatory features what would you include? Does it need likes,alerts,in built colour changes, profile comments, status updates, in built blog, lightweight interface, full of jquery or maybe it needs a clean, advanced, modern default design? Or does it need to stray from the usual and make itself very different and include in built make your own page feature like Facebook, instant messaging system instead of inbox/private messaging, does it need to layout it's threads and boards differently? What does a good new forum software need?

 

[Panda©]

Going back maybe 5 years ago i used to run 2 great forums both would have 200 unique visits per day, one was VB and the other IPB, i always loved the look of the Vbulletin board and the easy modification installs, however i found mods that required a lot of edits were a lot easier on IPB and that the administration was cleaner and easier to use.
The thing that made my forums so successful was the ajax shout boxes on both boards, they were very popular, i think the chat boxes on more modern boards are not up to scratch.

My latest forum i used phpbb i find it relatively easy to use even for a novice and themes are clean and not complicated, the one thing that annoys me tho are all modifications are designed only for prosilver theme and other themes leave you scratching your head

Great post pal

 

[juststeven]

Going back maybe 5 years ago i used to run 2 great forums both would have 200 unique visits per day, one was VB and the other IPB, i always loved the look of the Vbulletin board and the easy modification installs, however i found mods that required a lot of edits were a lot easier on IPB and that the administration was cleaner and easier to use.
The thing that made my forums so successful was the ajax shout boxes on both boards, they were very popular, i think the chat boxes on more modern boards are not up to scratch.

My latest forum i used phpbb i find it relatively easy to use even for a novice and themes are clean and not complicated, the one thing that annoys me tho are all modifications are designed only for prosilver theme and other themes leave you scratching your head

Great post pal

Thanks. I've used PhpBB in the past but I've never found it in the same league as MyBB. MyBB is simpler, more customizable and has fantastic themes, even amazing free themes made for it.

 

[Hotspot]

I think it needs to just work correctly, look nice and able to have many different themes that can be created by users.